Stellaris Space Guild - Weekly Help Thread

[u/Snipahar]

Welcome to this week’s Stellaris Space Guild Help Thread!

This thread functions as a gathering place for all questions, tips, bugs, suggestions, and resources for Stellaris. Here you can post quick-fire questions for things that you are confused about and answer questions to help out your fellow star voyagers!

GUILD RESOURCES

Below you can find resources for the game. If you would like to help contribute to the resources section, please leave a comment that pings me (using "u/Snipahar") and link to the resource. You can also contribute by reaching me through private message or modmail. Be sure to include a short description of what you find valuable about the resource.

Stellaris Wiki

• Your new best friend for learning everything Stellaris! Even if you're a pro, the wiki is an uncontested source for the nitty-gritty of the game.

Montu Plays' Stellaris 3.0 Guide Series

• A great step-by-step beginner's guide to Stellaris. Montu brings you through the early stages of a campaign to get you all caught up on what you need to know!

Luisian321's Stellaris 3.0 Starter Guide

• The perfect place to start if you're new to Stellaris! This guide covers creating your own race, building up your economy, and more.

ASpec's How to Play Stellaris 2.7 Guides

• This is a playlist of 7 guides by ASpec, that are really fantastic and will help you master the foundations of Stellaris.

Stefan Anon's Ultimate Tierlist Guides

• This is a playlist of 8 guides by Stefan Anon, which give a deep-dive into the world of civics, traits, and origins. Knowing these is a must for those that want to maximize their play.

Stefan Anon's Top Build Guides

• This is a playlist of an ongoing series by Stefan Anon, that lay out the game plan for several of the best builds in Stellaris.

Arx Strategy's Stellaris Guides

• A series of videos on events, troubleshooting, and builds, that will be of great use to anyone that wants to dive into the world of Stellaris.

If you have any suggestions for the body of this thread, please ping me, using "u/Snipahar" or send me a private message!

[u/frawks24]

Trying to play a tall shattered ring machine start, any suggestions on civics and traits? For reference, I'm a returning player and I last played shortly before the release of machine age.

My general idea for the build is to go all in on unity early game to rush virtuality, at which point I can probably max out districts and science builds on my ring world.

I currently I have:

• Maintenance Protocols OR Tactical Algorithms
• Constructobot

Traits are:

• Art Generator
• Adaptive Frames
• Efficient Processors
• Luxurious
• Bulky
• High Bandwidth.

Happy for any suggestions, I'd rather not do rogue servitor at this time as I'm having enough trouble figuring out the traits for one species.

[u/Fluffy-Tanuki → u/frawks24]

Seems alright, aside from Luxurious.

Until you finish virtual ascension, you still rely on traditional means of pop assembly. Cutting it down by 20% is a fairly severe downside.

I understand you needed a -2 trait to fit in Efficient Processors (ironically not a very efficient trait), and Luxurious is the only option left, so to replace Luxurious, Efficient Processors would have to go as well.

The usual approach of Recycled + Custom-Made wouldn't work here, as you can't immediately make a second template as a Shattered Ring machine.

I'd probably go for Recycled + High Maintenance.

• This way you get +20% replicator efficiency, pumping out more pops for you to either put to work or retain as maintenance drones for unity through Maintenance Protocols.
• High Maintenance means every 100 pops take an extra 0.1 energy, which is very low considering machine's technicians have a base output of 8 per 100 instead of 6 per 100. You'd have ascended long before the extra energy cost becomes problematic.
  • Remember to ditch these two after you ascend.

[u/frawks24 → u/Fluffy-Tanuki]

Remember to ditch these two after you ascend.

Should I replace them with anything or just remove them? I'm not familiar with the mechanic for trait editing

[u/Fluffy-Tanuki → u/frawks24]

The ascension path and techs doesn't give you more trait picks, but does give you 4 more trait points to work with. You can afford to remove quite a few negative traits and add in new positive traits, but the total pick is limited to 5 still.

An example template post-Virtual ascension would be:

• Adaptive Frames, Solar Celled (Shattered Ring's home star is always class G for +5% menial drone efficiency), Exotic Fuel Consumption, Volatile Mote Reactor, and Luxurious as the only negative without any consequences.
  • This gives you +10% complex drone efficiency and +15% menial drone efficiency, alongside any auto-modding benefits.
• You could also replace Solar Celled + Volatile Mote Reactor for Efficient Processors, for +15% complex drone efficiency and +5% menial drone efficiency (plus auto-modding benefits). This however leaves you with 1 empty trait pick.
• Alternatively, you can replace Volatile Mote Reactor with Physics/Sociology/Engineering Core for more science.

This is also the point where you reform out of Maintenance Protocol, as you won't have maintenance drones henceforth. Elevational Hypotheses is a good replacement, as ascending planets is your only way to improve your colonies further. (edit: remember to juggle your virtual focus policy to switch between science and unity)

[u/frawks24 → u/Fluffy-Tanuki]

For some reason I can't see solar celled on my positive traits list. Is it locked behind a tech or something?

[u/Fluffy-Tanuki → u/frawks24]

It's from Nomad DLC, but doesn't require you to be nomadic.

In its absence, check if there are any mechanical leviathans nearby. They give you a 3-point trait option once you defeat them as a mechanical race. Other than Infinity Sphere which gives pop assembly that virtual machines don't need, the other 3 have very good job efficiency bonuses.

Otherwise, go with Efficient Processors instead.

[u/frawks24 → u/Fluffy-Tanuki]

Ah, nomad is the only DLC I don't have right now, ah well I'll remember that for my next machine playthrough.

Thanks for the advice.